St Helens Church
Sharnford
The first church was built and consecrated in the year 1180 and was dedicated to St Helen, the mother of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome.
The greater part of the present structure was erected in the 15th century. Over the years there have been many alterations. Notably in 1772 when the spire was removed and in 1854 when the present porch was built to replace the old wooden structure. Under Canon Watson, in 1866, a major restoration took place when the west gallery was taken down and the belfry thrown open. The west door in the belfry was blocked up and all the doors renewed. The tower was slightly raised and the stone work repointed and roof repaired. All this cost £563.
The next major restoration took place after a devastating fire on February 27th 1984 destroyed the interior. Today we have a beautiful church building where Christians continue to worship and serve as so many generations of this parish did before.
In 1919, residents of Sharnford raised enough money to provide a war memorial, to be sited in the churchyard of St. Helen‟s Church. With the ravages of weather and traffic pollution the memorial needed to be refurbished, which took place in 2017. The rededication service took place on 28th May 2017. I am now pleased to say that the endeavours of the ladies from St. Helens Church has come to fruition with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport deciding to add Sharnford War Memorial to the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. The memorial is now listed Grade II.
The cache is not located in the churchyard and you must use the War Memorial to obtain the co-ordinates for the location of the cache
The cache can be found at N 52 31.ABC W 001 17.DEF where
A : How many Thomas's in the second world war
B : "Their Glory Shall Not Be Blotted Out" add the two digits of the verse number
C : Number of Regiment for Trooper Thomas Woodrow Smith
D : In the Great War the number of 9th Leicesters minus the number in the machine gun corps
E : Add the Regimental Numbers of Captain P.C. Harris and Private F.J Timson
F : Number of letters in the surname of the Private who was added to the base of the monument.
If you would like to add to the Church Micro series yourself then please look here
http://churchmicro.co.uk/
There is also a Church Micro Stats & Information page that can be found at
http://www.15ddv.me.uk/geo/cm/index.html
Well done Bazhornet FTF 